Thursday, 24 February 2011

An error in judgement

Nearly threw myself under the wheels of a car this morning, worst mistake I have made on the road in a looooong time. Approaching a big roundabout there's a long line of cars stopped on the cycle lane so I cut down the right hand lane intending to slot in further up the line where the bike lane becomes mandatory (so will be free of cars...yeah right!) it's a big roundabout and has a cycle lane so no matter how busy it is I can normally get on and off without problems using the mandatory bike lane*. Anyway I'm heading down the right lane, no spaces at all then a space appears right at the front, I race forwards to try to get to it but the van next to me floors it too, I'm faster but not quick enough to get into the left lane properly, I endup charging into the roundabout too fast, too wide and pretty much straight into the path of a car already on the roundabout. Fortunatley he/she saw me and braked I waved apology and again as he/she passed me on the exit. Felt like a right tool, stupid stupid idiot.

I dunno this probably wouldn't have fazed me when I was younger, infact half the incidents I moan about on here probably wouldn't, near misses were still misses - I win. Nowadays I know how to ride "properly" and I know how other road users should treat me, before it was "the road is for cars, i'll just weave around them", now it's "we are all traffic, lets do things properly please". So I get all flustered when people don't give me some common courtesy, ie a bit of room so I don't get hit by a tonne of fast moving metal if I fallover/wobble/breath out and I get more worked up about a driver treating me as a 2nd class road user than I will about someone nearly killing me, education can be a dangerous thing**

*This is fine if you are taking the next exit but if you are taking the 2nd, 3rd or 4th exit the markings indicate you keep to the edge and stop at every exit road and wait for a space to cross it then move on to the next one, daft, instead of getting into the flow of traffic and it being 2 junctions (1 on 1 off) the road planners want to you to negotiate several. Rubbish design.

**education is like a communicable sexual disease, it makes you unsuitable for certain jobs and you feel the urge to pass it on :-)

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About Me

I ride bikes, for fun. I also do it to keep fit and cos commuting any other ways sucks but mainly for fun. This is a ride diary with sporadic comments about the state of the trails/roads/world around me.